Thursday, 3 January 2013

It’s five o’clock. Time for Sports Report

When half-past
five on Saturday comes round

For week-end
stimulation will resort

To Andrew and
Mackay and Sports Report

For over six
decades the jaunty tones of Out of the
Blue have both presaged the latest sports results and to evoke the
nostalgia of simpler times – an era of football fixtures that always kicked off
at 3 o’clock, filling in the Vernons pools coupon or reading the late edition
of the Hull Daily Mail Sports Green (a memory for readers in East Yorkshire
there). Depending on your age, and memory, you may recall the radio
voices of Eamonn Andrews, Peter Jones, Bryon Butler, Bill Bothwell and Larry
Canning. In this post I review the history of Sports Report and the Saturday afternoon sports sequence in the
days before sponsorship, the premiership and Sky Sports HD.

NARRATIVE
ACCOUNTS

From the
early days of the BBC there was coverage of the major sporting events. Pre-war,
the voices of John Snagge at the Boat Race and George Allison’s football
commentaries (his first match between the Corinthians and Newcastle United on
29 January 1927 was the second ever football commentary transmission) were
already familiar to listeners.

The press
and news agencies were initially reluctant to allow the fledgling broadcaster live
coverage. The Radio Times of 30 April 1926 argued that “the BBC have repeatedly
requested permission to broadcast from all stations narrative accounts of a
very limited number of outstanding events while they are in progress, such as
the Boat Race and the Cup-Tie Final, but they are prevented from doing so by
the terms of the Agreement made with the Press before the Company was licensed
by the Postmaster-General, and relaxation in this direction has so far been
declined.”

With the
licensing of the newly formed Corporation starting on 1 January 1927 that all
changed and the BBC proclaimed that it would “broadcast running narratives and
commentaries on all the leading sporting events and great public occasions, as
well as put out more comprehensive and varied news bulletins, the first to be
aired at 6.30, half-an-hour earlier than before.”

By the end
of the year the first ever live commentaries had taken place for rugby matches,
cricket, Wimbledon, the Grand National and the Derby.

June 1 1927
– first Derby, narrated by Geoffrey Gilbey and George Allison

July 2 1927
– running commentary on the Wimbledon finals

September 7
1927 - running commentary of the St Leger by Geoffrey and Quintin Gilbey

Although the
BBC continued to cover an increasing number of sporting events there was, up
until 1939, still an embargo on the reporting of sports news and results until
after 6.15 p.m.

HELLO THERE
SPORTS FANS

The idea of
a round-up of Saturday’s sports news just after the final whistle didn’t
surface until late 1947 when news producer Angus Mackay (pictured above) was approached to start
what would be called Sports Report.
Writing in 1954 he recalled that it was October 1947 “when I received a phone
call from John McMillan, who was then the first assistant to Norman Collins,
Controller, Light Programme. McMillan asked me in his laconic way ‘would you
like to try your hand at putting a sports programme out on the air at 5.30 p.m.
in the Light Programme?”

This would
technically be quite demanding as the match reports had to come from studios,
so only those grounds that were within a fast car drive away of a BBC studio
could be considered. Mackay continues: “A lightning trip round the BBC Regions
followed. Would the North, Midlands, Wales and West of England co-operate? They
would, but ominously the generous offers to help were generally accompanied by
bland statements to the effect that whether they did or not we would never get
a programme on the air as early as 5.30 p.m. Personally, I was inclined to
agree, but nevertheless we forged ahead and on 3rd January 1948 we went on the
air with the very first edition of Sports
Report.”

At the
microphone was Raymond Glendenning, the BBC’s moustachioed all-rounder
commentator. No recordings of that first show exist but the script went as
follows:

Hello there,
sports fans, and welcome to Sports Report
– a weekly programme on the air at this time every Saturday, with a roving
microphone, to bring you not only the football results, but up-to-the-minute
accounts of major sporting fixtures from all parts of the country, and an
“open” microphone over which we shall be airing the personal views of experts
on sport on topics of the moment. Now our aim is to bring into your home,
wherever you may be, a half-hour coverage of sport, wherever it may be taking
place. How well we have succeeded in this first edition, you will be able to
judge after the next 29 minutes.”

The first programme
featured reports from three football matches: Portsmouth v Huddersfield with
John Arlott and Manchester City v Aston Villa with Alan Clarke (who would stay
with the BBC for another 20 years as football commentator). The Scottish League
match was Rangers v Dundee and the England v Australia Rugby Union fixture was
covered by Frank Shaw.

For many
years the programme would also feature longer talks on sporting news and
previews. So we heard newspaperman Peter Wilson, of the Daily Mirror, talk about US sports events and personalities whilst
Alan Hoby, of the Sunday Express,
argued in favour of part-time payments to athletes.

As John
Arlott recalled there were several different types of contributors:”the outside
reporter, dashing to a microphone to hustle his hot news over the air; the
talker who would discuss a situation authoritatively; and, finally, the
personality, from a world champion at any kind of sport to a man who had just
made the news.”

Sports Report 14 March 1959

Mackay’s
favoured use of Fleet Street sports journalists- as well as Wilson and Hoby,
J.L.Manning of the Daily Mail was
another regular- raised tensions between two BBC departments for the best part
of two decades. The programme itself was under the News division whilst the
commentators worked Outside Broadcasts. “A Chinese wall soon developed between
these two departments” recalled racing commentator Peter Bromley, “and there
was little or no co-operation and certainly no goodwill.”

It wasn’t
until the Head of OB Charles Max Muller retired in 1969 and Robert Hudson took
over that plans to amalgamate Outside Broadcasts and Sports News were made. In
the event this didn’t happen until Mackay also retired in 1972 and Cliff Morgan
became the new Editor of Sport.

The
inclusion of Out of the Blue as the
theme for Sports Report was a last
minute addition. Here’s Angus Mackay again:

For several weary days Hugh Driver, one of my colleagues, and I had been listening to
literally dozens of gramophone records trying to find a suitable melody. It
seemed to us that we had exhausted the reserves of the gramophone library, and
we were not very happy about the disc we had chosen when, in the late afternoon
of our first broadcast, the library came through to say that there were a few
more discs available if we had time to hear them. We did find time that
afternoon and one of the first we heard was a march called Out of the Blue composed by Hubert Bath. This was just what we had
been looking for and almost immediately it was whisked up to the studio,
slapped on the turntable and used to introduce the first edition.

Eamonn Andrews was much used on BBC TV and radio.
In this Radio Times from 1962 he featured on Sports Parade,
Sports Report, What's My Line?, This is Your Life
and Crackerjack

Glendenning was
not the only presenter, he was followed by Rex Alston, Geoffrey Peck, Wynford
Vaughan-Thomas, Stephen Grenfell, Stewart MacPherson, Peter Wilson, John
Webster (more of whom later), Alex McCrindle, Max Robertson, Henry Longhurst,
Cliff Michelmore and, for one time only, George Allison. But it was the voice
of Eamonn Andrews that would be most closely associated with the programme in
its early days.

Andrews had
been a sports commentator on Radio Éireann before joining the BBC in 1950,
taking over from Stewart MacPherson as question-master on Ignorance is Bliss. When that ended he read a few morning stories
and set about pestering the OB Department for commentary try-outs. Following an
introduction to Mackay by colleague Brian George, Andrews was hired to host Sports Preview on the BBC’s General
Overseas Service. Shortly after he was asked to take on Sports Report – his first edition airing on 9 December 1950.

THE STERN SCOT

The combination of Mackay “the stern, methodical Scot”
and Andrews “the affably engaging Irishman” was perfect chemistry and,
according to sports writer Patrick Collins “the results were stunning. The
essential service of reports and statistics was never disregarded, but a
newspaper of the airwaves consists of more than a back page, and one of the
strengths of the programme became its willingness to air controversy and
encourage strong opinions.”

Angus Mackay
instilled a discipline into sports reporting that endures to this day.
Remembering the early programmes he wrote that “we used to think we were
putting on fast, slick shows. In those days we used to give as much as two and
a half minutes to a report on a soccer match, and we got what we deserved-
flowery, well-padded stories which contained a good deal of wholly unnecessary
information. We learned the hard way because there was no precedent for a
programme such as this, but it wasn’t long before we realised that a good radio
reporter could give us an accurate, informative picture of a game insomething like a minute and a quarter or a
minute and a half.”

Mackay and Andrews in the studio

Mackay would
sit in the studio next to Eamonn Andrews giving him instructions at relevant
moments. The programme would go on to pioneer the concept of the
producer/presenter talkback. Years later Alan Parry worked with Mackay for his
first few months and recalled “What a character. What a man. His discipline was
very strict, and if he asked you to deliver a one minute report it had to be
just that – one minute”.

From 20
August 1955 Sports Report was
extended to run for one hour, occupying its now familiar 5-6 p.m. slot during
the football season. In 1949 another sports programme had been added to the
Light Programme schedule:Sports Parade.
Starting on 15 January and subtitled “What’s on Today?” it aired on Saturday
lunchtimes all year round. An early presenter was Michael Brooks but it was
later presented by whoever was in charge of Sports
Report later that afternoon.

As the
technology developed Sports Report
was able to cover more matches. Mackay had pushed for the SOOBE, the Self-Operated
Broadcast Equipment. This was a briefcase the reporter took to the match,
plugged into a telephone point that connected to the Post Office and onto
Broadcasting House. There was no more mad dash to the nearest studio.

John Webster reads the classifieds

The other
component was the reading of the Classified Football Results. Allotted, at that
time, precisely 270 seconds to read, this duty fell to one of the staff
announcers; so you’d have heard John Hobday, Jimmy Kingsbury, Robin Boyle, John
Wing and, most frequently during the 50s and 60s, John Webster.

Describing
the announcers in 1955 Eamonn Andrews talks about them drifting “into the
studio at five-twenty-nine, calmly slip the written results from the hands of
some breathless attendant, slide into a chair, give a sly sidelong glance at
the clock and bestow a sort of silent benediction to the gabbling, whispering
reports in the four corners of the studio. A half-smile in my direction and I
feel they saying ‘Relax, I’m ready.’

Here’s a
short clip of John Webster reading the results followed by an extract of a Home
Service news bulletin in 1961.

In this recording
of Sports Report from 30 October 1948
you’ll hear presenter Stephen Grenfell and then announcer Robin Boyle reading
the results - but surely it’s ‘nil” not “nought”.

FROM THE
REGIONS

Whilst Sports Report covered the day’s results
the actual sporting coverage was a little more random, scattered throughout the
afternoon on either the Light Programme or the Home Service, or even, from 1957
the wavelengths of the Third Programme when they carried Test Match Special for
the first time. As the Home Service was regional it tended to look after things
like Rugby League, for us Northerners, or Scottish Association football north
of the border.

Here’s a
typical Saturday of sport from 14 March 1959 if you’d been living in the North
of England:

In October
1958 Grandstand was to start on BBC
TV with former Midlands Region sports presenter David Coleman at the helm. But
BBC Radio still didn’t have a full year-round Saturday afternoon sports
programme, though for the summer months from 1955 the Saturday and August Bank
Holiday coverage on the Light Programme was grouped together under the umbrella
title of Out and About, the whole
held together by announcers such as Robin Boyle or Jimmy Kingsbury. There was
still a break for music though with Bandstand.

THE POWER OF
THREE

Out and About ended in 1960 and from 29 April 1961
the BBC was now making use of the Network Three wavelengths (as the daytime
service of the Third Programme was called) to broadcast the new Sports Service; running throughout the summer
months and Bank Holidays consisting of live commentaries interspersed with
classical and light music. Sports Parade
and Sports Report continued on the
Light with music programmes in between, though there was still the odd bit of
cricket and racing.

In 1964 the Sports Service programmes resumed again
from 25 April, but this time it was the start of what we now recognise as the
regular Saturday afternoon sports magazine. Sports
Parade and Sports Report moved
across from the Light Programme on 22 August 1964 to top and tail the main
programme. The Radio Times of 19 September 1964 explained:

In previous
years the Third Network Sports Service
has been a strictly summer adventure on Saturdays and Bank Holidays. This year,
for the first time, it is going on indefinitely. The programme will in future
deal with all the Saturday sport which was formerly covered by the other
Services; it will take over rugby from the Home, and association football and
horse racing from the Light.The only exception
is that the Regional and national Home Service will still carry commentaries
and reports on some events which are of particular concern to their own
listeners – such as Scottish football or the first half of an international
rugger match.

The Sports Service
on that date ran as follows:

Sports Parade

Sporting Chance – repeat of a quiz with question
master John Snagge

Sailing –
reports from (surprisingly) Ken Sykora, best known for presenting music shows

Motor
Cycling from Scarborough with Alan Clarke & Eddie Fitch

Motor Racing
from Oulton Park with Robin Richards and Eric Tobitt

Olympic
Preview with Rex Alston

Racing from
Haydock Park with Peter Montague-Evans (Peter Bromley presumably at another
meeting)

Association
Football with second-half commentary from Brian Moore and Simon Smith

Sports Report

Of course
this move just wasn’t to please sports fans. Earlier that year Radio Caroline
had started its transmissions so the Beeb wanted to stop the tide of listeners
tuning into the pirates, moving all the sport to the Third Network cleared the
Light’s schedule for more music in Saturday
Swings and a new weekend edition of Roundabout.

19 September 1964

For the
first two or three years linking the Sports
Service again fell under the duties of the continuity announcers working
from studio 1A. Announcers included Jimmy Kingsbury, John Dunn, Bob Willcox,
Robin Boyle, Rodney Burke, Andrew Gemmill, Peter Latham and, most regularly
Michael de Morgan. Sports Parade and Sports Report were presented by either Robin
Marler or Liam Nolan. Eamonn Andrews had left the BBC earlier in 1964 –
presenting his last Sports Report on
25 April – before heading off to ITV where he was given his own last-night
Sunday talk show and, from 2 January 1965, becoming the first anchor of World of Sport.

The first major defection to "the other side".
World of Sport started in 1965

By 1968 Sports Service, now on Radio 3, had
presenters who would become very familiar to radio sports fans: Peter Jones,
surely one of the finest ever commentators, who’d joined the sports department
in 1966, and Bryon Butler, who would become the radio football correspondent for
over 20 years. On occasional presenting duties were Brian Johnston, Neil
Durden-Smith and Vincent Duggleby (later of Money
Box fame).

Behind the
scenes alongside Angus Mackay were producers Geoff Dobson and Jacob de Vries. Jacob
had started with the BBC in the 1950s on Sports
Session. He became the main sports editor presenting Sunday Sport (Home Service from 1966) and World Service programmes Spectator and Bulletin from Britain. In the 1970s he worked for West Nally, a
sports marketing company set-up by BBC commentator Peter West and Patrick
Nally.

IT TAKES TWO

Following
the internal review of the BBC’s radio services, Broadcasting in the Seventies, it was decided to realign the four
national stations. One consequence of this was that all sport was to move to
Radio 2. The final Sports Service
aired on 28 March 1970 and Sport on 2
the following Saturday 4 April – both presented by the now regular host Peter
Jones.

﻿

The great Peter Jones

That first Sport on 2 included coverage of The
Grand National with commentary from Peter Bromley, Michael O’Hehir, Michael
Seth-Smith and Roger Mortimer; Rugby Union commentary on the Wales v France
game from Alun Williams and Alan Gibson; and second-half football commentary
with Maurice Edelston and Bryon Butler. The running time for the first few
months was just 2.30 to 5.45 p.m. but it soon extended to start at 2.00 p.m.and
end at 6.00 p.m. By 1973 it was carried on long wave only, Radio 1 grabbing the
scare VHF resource on Saturday afternoons, and by 1974 it was starting at its
long-running regular time of 1.30 p.m.

In fact
sport didn’t entirely disappear from Radio 4. The Sports Parade broadcasts moved to that channel from 4 April and
continued its run until the end of the football season in 1974. A new sports
preview programme, Sport on 4, joined
the schedules in 1977, but that’s for a future post.

Sport on 2 got its own theme too, Number 1 by The Delle Haensch Band,
those first few notes perfectly punctuating the programme’s opening
announcement, and conveniently a definite end to dovetail into the next
programme junction or the pips. It continued to be used as the theme for Sport on Five but was dropped some years
ago, if you know exactly when please let me know.

Jim Rosenthal presents Sport on 2 from the Thames
for coverage of the Boat Race
(Photo Roger George Clark)

At the helm
of Sport on 2 during the 1970s and
80s, now masterminded from studio B9, were Peter Jones, Bryon Butler, Desmond
Lynam, Chris Martin-Jenkins (who sadly died just this week), Jim Rosenthal,
Alan Parry, Tony Adamson, Mike Ingham, Ian Darke, Renton Laidlaw, Jon Champion
and John Inverdale. Many of these came up the ranks from BBC local radio, many
went onto work in TV.

This is
Peter Jones with part of the Sports
Report programme for 25 August 1984, the start of the new season, with
reports from Ian Carnaby, George Hamilton, Mike Ingham and Stuart Hall.

One constant
on Saturday afternoons for the last 30+ years is that of James Alexander
Gordon (above), reading the classified football results in his own inimitable style. The
previous main reader, John Webster, had retired from the BBC in October 1970
and so the task was picked up by other staff announcers such as Jimmy Kingsbury
and even Simon Bates. In 1974 James Alexander Gordon joined the rota of readers
– Kingsbury, by then Presentation Editor, asking him to “nip over to sport and
read the classifieds” – alongside David Bellan and Len Jackson, and he became
the sole reader from the early 80s and continues to this day.

Just before
“the five o’clock show” as Sports Report
was known to the production team, there was a live link-up with Grandstand:

TWO INTO
FIVE

By 1990 BBC
radio was having to relinquish some of the FM/AM simulcasting and Radio 2’s
medium wave frequencies were allocated to the first new national station in 23
years, the rag-bag of programmes that became Radio 5. All the sports coverage
moved across along with children’s programme, youth-orientated shows, schools
programming, the Open University, bits of the World Service and a new breakfast
show.

Here’s John
Inverdale with the final Sport on 2
on 25 August 1990. The following weekend the programme moved lock, stock and
barrel to become Sport on Five.

2 April 1994. Note a displaced Sports Report due to
the extra football commentary.
And when did Sport on Five drop the racing results?

From 2 April
1994 Sport on Five (also variously billed as Sport on 5) was now on the new 24
hour news and sports service Radio Five Live, still with ‘Invers’ at the helm
but now extended to start at 1.00 p.m. Presenters since have included Ian
Payne, Jonathan Legard, Clare Balding, Eleanor Oldroyd, Russell Fuller, Arlo
White, Mark Saggers and currently either Mark Pougatch or Mark Chapman. The
sports coverage was re-titled as 5 Live
Sport with effect from 3 June 2006 just ahead of the World Cup tournament.

Over the
years the Saturday afternoon programme was seen an increase in its duration and
11 a.m. or 12 noon start times are not uncommon as matches kick off earlier to
accommodate the demands of TV. Sports
Report itself has remained a fixture during the football season but has
sometimes been cut to just 15 or 30 minutes when there’s an evening match.
Sport is no longer mainly just a Saturday event: summertime sports coverage was
introduced on Radio 2 medium wave back in the mid-80s.And of course there’s plenty of opportunity
to chew the sporting cud in 606 orSportsweek.

The armchair
sports fan is now well served by the broadcasters: 5 Live, 5 Live Sports Extra,
talkSport, Sky Sports, ESPN, BT Vision but the old warhorse, Sports Report, is there. It’s theme may
sound dated amongst the electronic whooshes and beats but, to quote one-time
presenter Des Lynam, “it’s part of the fabric of sports broadcasting. It’s a
tradition.”Altogether now: De Dum De
Dum De Dum De Dum Diddly Dum De Dum.

6 comments:

The last time 'Number One' was heard in its original version was, I think, 30th December 2000. From 1st January 2001 the name 'Sport on 5' was used throughout the week - with names like 'Sunday Sport', 'The Monday Match' etc. being dropped - and at that point an updated version of the theme was introduced (probably dropped when it became 'Five Live Sport' in 2006).

Interesting that the 27.12.77 Sport on 2 intro is FM quality - this edition was actually broadcast on VHF which it usually wasn't (the last VHF Saturday edition before Radio 1 took over the frequencies was 31.03.73, the one with the famous Red Rum/Crisp Grand National), perhaps that was why you recorded it? (Assuming it was you!)

Yes that 27.12.77 recording is mine and you're right it was a rare opportunity to hear the programme start on VHF. At the time I think my local BBC station (Humberside) used to link up with Radio 2 for Sports Report so you'd get to hear that bit in clearer quality.

Thank you very much for an amazing trip around my own memory lane. I was never a sportsman but was always a follower of BBC Radio and in the early Fifties would be forced to listen to soccer commentary whilst suffering a haircut in the local barber's shop, then again the results whilst dad ticked off his never-ever-won draws on the pools sheet. Those magical voices were later to become much more than names when many, many years later I was appointed Senior Events Producer in the Travel and Events outpost of Radio Sport, following in Robert Hudson's footsteps and shortly after the untimely death of Peter Jones. I knew and worked with many of the names mentioned including Cliff Morgan, Cliff Michelmore, Robin Boyle and, yes, John Inverdale who persuaded me to (just once and never again) commentate on a football match. Sadly, because of John Birt, I was to be the last holder of that distinguished title. What a wonderful history and worth telling again and again.

Marvellous stuff. I especially liked being reminded of Sports Parade at Saturday lunchtime. Not sure now if you mentioned it was hosted by Charlie Buchan.Also excellent to get to see what John Webster looked like. Perhaps you could create a page for him on Wiki. I MUCH preferred his way of reading the results over J.A.Gordon who'd give away the result before we got to the away team's score - so annoying.Very best wishes from another radio fan.Ivor Solomons

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About Me

Hailing originally from Hull and spending most of my life in East Yorkshire I'm now resident in France.
For over 30 years I've been interested in radio, tv and film and have an archive of off-air recordings and radio-related material.
I'm not the Andy Walmsley that designs sets or produces tv programmes.
Professionally I worked in Local Government.
My wife Val works for Beaux Villages Immobilier.